Duncan Bowie on a vitriolic attack
The Crisis of Colonial Anglicanism by Martin Percy published by Hurst
This is an important book, though a very frustrating one. Percy, who is a theologian and ordained Anglican minister (though this is difficult to believe reading the book) makes a damning critique of the Church of England. His basic argument is that the Church of England, as a national church established by Henry VIII in 1534, exported its form of Christianity to the countries of the British Empire as a core component of British imperialism and therefore is not just complicit but shares in the crimes of British imperialism, notably slavery. The so-called Anglican communion was a product of the Empire, and with the end of the Empire and the lack of credibility of its successor body, the Commonwealth, it has no validity. The Anglican communion is divided, and the Archbishop of Canterbury has no basis for any leadership of the global Anglicanism or for being seen as “primus inter pares”- first among equals.
Percy, who holds theologian posts in Hong Kong, Macao, and Bern, has written previously on the need for reform of the Church of England, but this work appears so critical of all aspects of the “established” church that any reader can only conclude that the Church is beyond recovery. Most of the book was written before the resignation of Archbishop Welby in November, though this is touched on in a hastily written “coda”, which points out that while two previous archbishops have been executed (Cranmer and Laud), Welby is the first to be forced out in disgrace.
For a theologian, there is little in the book which might be called theology, that is, comparing church practice with the theology of the New Testament. Moreover, there is actually very little on recent or contemporary Anglican practice either in England or of Anglicans in other countries. The debates at the various Lambeth conferences or the Church of England synod are not considered in any detail. Instead, Percy focuses on the historical association of the Church of England with Empire. Percy rehearses aspects of British association with slavery and the case for reparations familiar to any reader of numerous recent post-colonial studies of the subject, without actually saying anything very original about the Church’s association with it. There is nothing about the role of Anglican missionaries in countering slavery abroad or about their role in advocating abolition in Britain. To Percy, the Anglican church is not only associated with Empire and slavery, but also with monarchy, autocracy, elitism, classism, sexism, and homophobia.
Percy, of course, has a point in criticizing the association of the Church of England with the monarchy and royalty – the church was established as a national state church, so the Pope and other foreigners could not rule it, rather than on any theological basis. It is neither Calvinist or Lutheran and shares much of its liturgical practice with the Catholic church – with a bit less worship of the Virgin Mary and the vast number of Catholic saints, though there is little consistency in the Anglican liturgy which tolerates everything from “happy clappy” sing along populism to Fathers in golden vestments with incense, chasubles and altar boys. Percy points out that church attendance has been in dramatic decline, in contrast with some other denominations, and that, given the lack of predominance even within the Christian communities in England, the notion of a state church, with 26 bishops in the House of Lords, is now untenable. Welsh bishops lost their seats in the Lords when the Church of Wales was disestablished in 1914.
Percy’s attack on the church leadership of Lambeth Palace and Church House is vitriolic. The Church is autocratic rather than democratic. The synod is seen as stage-managed and powerless. The bishops are viewed as autocratic business managers seeking to dictate to priests and parishes. The visions and plans of Church leaders, the ecclesiastical bureaucracy, are seen as riddled with management jargon rather than the principles and ethics of the New Testament. Percy contrasts this Old Church style with what he sees as the democratic New Church style of the American Episcopalians, though he seems to have completely discounted the role of the fundamentalist evangelical Christian right in the States, who have such a central role in the support for Trump. At least the Church of England can sometimes be seen as liberal or even progressive.
His suggestion that Guardian-reading vicars are often preaching to daily Telegraph-reading Conservatives is somewhat overstated. Interestingly, the Church Commissioners are only referred to in passing as the investment arm of the Church of England. I would have thought their current role in capitalist exploitation was more worthy of study than Percy’s obsession with historic slavery. This book, while intentionally provocative, tends to fall into the trap of much post-colonial history, which, in an attempt to be “wokier than thou,” is highly selective both in its use of history, producing highly questionable generalisations of both historic and current practice.
As an advocate of the disestablishment of the Church of England, a more rational and less polemical study can be found in Jonathan Chaplin’s 2022 book Beyond Establishment: Resetting Church-State Relations in England. One final comment: the image on the front of Percy’s book is described as “the Bishop of Lahore preaching before kneeling indigenous locals”. Actually, the turbanned Sikhs listening to the bishop are actually standing or sitting on the floor, which leaves a somewhat different impression. Also, the protestant revolution in England was actually in 1688, not 1788 as given at one point in the book, a somewhat serious error which should have been picked up by the editor, but which is perhaps an indication of the rather mixed quality of the book.